I actually had a co-worker make me an "I Went to War" card, like a Subway card, with clip-art of an infantryman's silhouette, a .45 pistol and a camel, numbered 1-10. I am supposed to punch out the numbers with a hole puncher anytime I mentioned Iraq, and after that, I'm not allowed to mention it.

Ha ha. Let me apologize for all the Iraq combat veterans for the times we might have tried to reference any part of our experience in order to frame something in the new context in which we find ourselves living.

Let me apologize for not thinking like the rest of you. I mean, we dress like you, eat and drink like you, push carts at the grocery store, walk with wives and girlfriends, or husbands and boyfriends at the mall and in the park. You probably can't identify us merely by looking at us. We're not perpetually surly like Clint Eastwood characters, and most of us don't generally sport Operation Iraqi Freedom caps or tee shirts, and if we ever had a "1,000-yard stare" it was at the end of a long day on patrol or a memorial service for one of our dead, and besides, it was on the other side of the world.

Let me apologize for the things we've seen and been through, and for the fact that these things seem comic to you. We've seen the heads of suicide bombers laying in ditches, severed feet, severed hands, and headless bodies. We've seen suspected insurgents fall to the ground like a sack of potatoes after being gunned down for, at the very least, being in the wrong place at very much the wrong time, doing the wrong thing. We've seen our closest friends gasp out their last breaths in the dirt, legs shattered to the knees. We've carried dead insurgents by the bare ankles with our bare hands, ankles still warm to the touch. We've sustained mortar barrages, rocket attacks, and had rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms rifle and machine gun fire shot at us. We've gone for months at a time with one shower a month, picked up smoking before having to quit back in the non-smoking Western World, and seen more of 3:00 am than anyone--even night shift employees and college students occasionally get a break.

Not all veterans saw what I saw, and I didn't see many things other of my combat veteran comrades saw. Our experiences are radically varied, but are generally characterized by de-sensitization, an expanded tolerance for suffering, and a radical aversion to frustration and any sort of feelings resembling helplessness.

And I think I can safely say we hate the petty f*#^ing things that the rest of you worry about. Petty co-workers and petty talk, petty bureaucratic rabbit trails. Life carries a new gravity about it that is just too hard to explain.

But by God, we're not allowed any slack. We get laughed down or poo-pood if we say, "Cut me some slack, man, I'm trying to get used to this here society again." Sorry if this seem petty to the rest of you.

I took the "I Went to War" card with an awkward grin and a little chuckle. I guess I should go punch a hole in it now.